{{contact.first_name}}, your Sunday Surprise is here (13Jun21)
Jun 13, 2021 11:31 am
Howdy !
Melbourne is finally out of lockdown (again) and it's nice to be able to have a sit down meal in a restaurant again! How are things tracking where ever you're reading this? Are there any restrictions or is life back to some kind of normal? As always, let me know!
As we approach the 1st birthday of the Sunday Surprise in a few weeks, we've blasted past the 150 subscriber mark! Still looking for more ways to celebrate the milestone. Any suggestions?
As always, a small favour? Could you forward this newsletter to just 3 people that you think would like one of the articles? It helps A LOT! If you're the friend reading this, click the link below to join! Glad to have you here!
In this week's email...
- Week in the Life - read on the blog
- Creative update - randInt episode 003 on YoutTube (~26min)
- Gadgets & Tech - Silver Birch Fountain Pen ($22)
- Read - Lessons learnt the hard way(~2mins)
- Watch - How do you measure happiness?
- Quote - "Nobody says 'Yeah, I'd like to set myself up for some serious criticism!' And yet the only way to be remarkable is to do just that."
Week in the life
Well I'm glad that the lockdown in Melbourne has ended and were slowly getting back to normal! IT's the Queen's birthday long weekend here in Melbourne. I genuinely thought it might get extended and that's why I didn't really plan much for the long weekend. Doh!
It's been nice to actually sit and relax with the cats around the house. They may have gotten some new toys like a new scratching post. As always, they're more interested in the box and the string in the packaging than the actual toy!
Gary being the old man cat he is, decided after a little while to go have a nap. That's him wondering what all the fuss is about!
The slowdown also gave me a chance to start going through my every increasing backlog of photos. At the moment, I'm offloading some from the DJI Mini 2 (probably my favourite drone!) and editing the ones taken just after the last lockdown lifted!
Here's my favourite one from the the SD card so far which is up on Instagram currently.
I decided to run some little experiments on the 'gram too, but more on that on the blog...
Creative
randInt episode 003 on YoutTube (~26min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u86pBXT3mIc
No no, you're not confused. RandInt is officially up to episode 008 but I'm a bit slack and have only just gotten the video of episode 3 up on Youtube. If you're curious about the cabin and how scared we were to turn on lights because of spiders and creepy crawlies, take a peek.
Also, next week we will be releasing an episode that's a bit special: our very first randInt interview!
We're actually doing the interview tomorrow so it's been interesting coming up with decent questions. Stay tuned for that one!
Gadgets & Tech
Silver Birch Fountain Pen ($22)
My other cheap fountain pens have very soft nibs and are a bit leaky. These are the first ones that are actually quite nice! The nibs are quite strong, though I will say the extra fine one is a bit scratchy. The other sizes are fine though. For the price, I haven't found anything remotely as good.
PREVIOUS/OTHER PRODUCTS
Some previous things that have been featured:
- Luminar AI - Fastest way to edit photos on your Mac or PC for both landscapes and portraits. Use code RAFFY for 10% off. IT's what I've been playing with during my leave!
- Nord VPN - Keep safe on the internet with a secure VPN. This is the cheapest but still reliable VPN that I've tested.
Read
Took a break from books this week and decided to read shorter pieces. As always, my search tends to end up either at Derek Sivers or Seth Godin. Both are masters of condensing ideas down to their simplest and shortest.
Lessons learnt the hard way - Seth Godin (~2mins)
https://seths.blog/2021/06/lessons-learned/
Book I just finished:
- Happy Sexy Millionaire - Just finished this and realised that I have read a lot of the other books on the topics covered to the point where I could tell you which other books said the cover subjects of each chapter and in some cases did it better/worse. I think I'll start making little book summaries over at raffyhalim.com and this will be the first one I cover.
Watch
How do you measure happiness? (~25min)
The age old question of what makes someone happy gets somewhat answered and it even explores some of the darker sides of living in the most happy countries on the planet. All in all, it was a good one to watch this weekend.
Quote I'm pondering
"Nobody says 'Yeah, I'd like to set myself up for some serious criticism!' And yet the only way to be remarkable is to do just that."
- Seth Godin
One example of Seth's concise writing that I absolutely love. In one sentence he both explains just what it takes to be remarkable in his opinion and why it's an uncommon feature in most people. If you're after more, there's his blog or Purple Cow (this book this quote is from).
I'm not a writer by any means and don't really have an aspiration to be one. However, communicating ideas is important in all fields, so it's worth facing some serious criticism and being remarkable at it. If you have any serious criticisms for this newsletter, I'm all ears!
Well, that's all for this week! Don't forget to send me your suggestions for how to celebrate the 1st birthday of The Sunday Surprise newsletter!
- Raffy
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